Tips For Flying With A Toddler, From Well-Traveled Parents

Flying with a toddler soon and looking for tips? Traveling can be stressful enough as it is, but the thought of flying with a toddler can be very intimidating for a lot of parents. However, with proper preparation and by following our tips for flying with a toddler, you can feel confident and ensure that you’ll have a smooth flight!

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Tips For Flying With A Toddler

Table of Contents (Click to View)

Flying with a Toddler – What To Know When Purchasing Tickets
What To Pack When Flying with a Toddler
Checking In with a Toddler
Going Through Airport Security with a Toddler
What To Do At The Airport with a Toddler
Boarding the Airplane with a Toddler
Tips for Keeping A Toddler Entertained On the Airplane
Useful Items For Flying with a Toddler

Flying with a toddler – What to know when purchasing tickets:

1. Purchasing an airplane seat for a toddler

The days of free flights are sadly over once your toddler turns two years old. When flying with a toddler age two and over, airlines require you to purchase their own seat at the full fare. There are rare occasions when you may be able to get a discounted child fare, such as during special promos with certain airlines like Qatar, British Airways or Southwest, but it’s not the norm.

2. Seat selection

If you don’t want to pay to select your seat in advance, the airline will reserve seats for you to ensure that your toddler is seated with you. However, I’ve found these “complimentary pre-selected seats” are always at the very back of the plane. It’s also important to note that you won’t be able to sit in the emergency exit row when flying with a toddler.

What to pack when flying with a toddler:

1. Pack essentials in their carry on bag

Essentials, AKA snacks (!!!) and entertainment! Seriously, bring all the snacks. Stash them in your purse, in your carry-on, in your child’s carry-on, and in your pocket, just in case. Snacks were a life saver whenever our toddler started getting restless waiting in line or during take off, etc. I’ll link some of our favourites down below.

If you’re looking for the best carry-on bag for a toddler, we recommend the JetKids BedBox! Our daughter absolutely loves pulling it, and she can even sit or ride on it as well! Inside it comes with cushions and a blanket that transform her airplane seat into a miniature bed! It’s genius and such a lifesaver on long-haul flights.

Other essentials to pack in carry-on luggage include:

Change of clothes (2-3 full outfits)
Warm layers (planes can sometimes be very cold or hot!)
Pull-ups/Diapers/Travel Potty Seat (depending where you’re at with potty training)
Power Bank
Leak-proof Water Bottle
Collapsible Non-Spill Snack Cup
Toddler Foldable Headphones
Tablet
Charging Cords
Flushable Wipes
Hand sanitizer
Toddler masks (during the pandemic)
Comfort toy (stuffed animal, blanket, etc)

2. What to pack in checked luggage

We checked in a separate luggage for our toddler since we were going to be away for two weeks. We let her choose which books and toys she wanted to bring, and packed some extra books and new toys that she hadn’t seen before to use on the trip back home.

We packed enough pull-ups to last us the trip, but depending where you are going, you can choose to just buy them at your destination if you are tight on space. Pack enough outfits so you don’t have to do much laundry while away, and don’t forget a swimsuit or two 🙂

To help our toddler feel comfortable sleeping in a new space, we brought some comforts from home. She loves her sound machine so we made sure to pack that, and her favorite sleep sack and bed sheets. When staying with family where she’ll have her own room, we also bring her baby monitor. The Motorola one we have is great because it easily connects to Wi-Fi and we can view the footage via the app on our phone in addition to the monitor.

Packing list for toddler’s suitcase:

Pull-ups/diapers to last the trip
Clothing to last the trip
Swimsuit x2
New toy for the trip home
Extra books
Sound machine
Baby monitor
Sleep sack
Bed/crib sheet

Checking into the airport with a toddler:

1. Make sure you have all of your toddler’s necessary documents

Passport
Parent consent letter
Health insurance
Immunization records
COVID test result

If you’re traveling internationally, be sure to have your toddler’s passport. If you’re traveling as only one parent, it is highly recommended to bring a consent letter stating you have permission from the other parent to travel abroad with your child. This may be asked for by immigration authorities when entering/exiting foreign countries, and not having it may cause delays or refusal to enter/exit a country.

Make sure to bring your child’s health insurance information, as well as copies of immunization records if you are leaving the country. And nowadays during the pandemic, double check if your destination OR airline require your toddler to have a negative COVID test result in order to fly. If so, make sure you have a paper copy of this as well.

2. Flying with your toddler’s car seat

Airlines do not require toddlers to be seated in a car seat on the airplane, although it is recommended. You have the choice of checking in your toddler’s car seat (for free) or bringing it onto the airplane to use in your toddler’s seat.

We choose to check our toddler’s car seat rather than carrying it through the airport and onto the plane. Our toddler does not particularly like being in her car seat anyway, or being restrained for that matter, so she’s always done better on the plane without it. Just make sure to remember to bring a car seat bag to protect it when you check it in!

There is also the option of buying a CARES restraint system, an FAA certified child harness system specifically made for the airplane that can be used as a car seat alternative. It is much more portable and easy to carry than a car seat.

3. Bringing a stroller for your toddler

Our first time flying with our toddler, we opted against bringing the stroller as we figured it would just be one extra thing to carry, and our toddler walks just fine on her own. However, we quickly realized we should have brought it.

Airports are massive and require a lot of walking and dodging people, and are full of distractions. Our toddler seemed to get overwhelmed and mostly just wanted us to carry her. She could not keep up with all the walking in the airports, especially at large airports like LAX. We ended up having to carry her most of the time through the airport, on top of having to carry our carry-on bags, which got tiring quick.

So, we definitely recommend just bringing a lightweight travel stroller through the airport! We love our Babyzen YOYO stroller because it quickly and easily folds up small, so if we aren’t able to find an elevator, we can just ask our toddler to quickly climb out so we can take the escalator/stairs, then quickly unfold it again.

Going through airport security with a toddler:

Going through airport security with a toddler is pretty straightforward. Instead of making them go through the large body scanners, they allow toddlers to walk with you through the metal detectors. The only downside to going through security is not being allowed any liquids, so you have to remember to dump out your toddler’s sippy cups/water bottles. Our toddler loves her water cup and was pretty upset when we had to dump it out to go through security. So, just have some type of distraction ready and find somewhere to fill it up again right after security if your toddler is like ours.

What to do at the airport with a toddler:

Play Area

We never really noticed all the fun play areas in airports until we flew with our toddler! These play areas are great for occupying a toddler until it’s time to board.

Eat

Keep your toddler well-fed and happy. For us, that meant lots of snacking. She was usually too excited and distracted to sit down for a whole meal while at the airport.

Use the toilet

If you have a potty-trained toddler, bring them to the toilet before boarding the flight. I always bring our foldable travel potty seat in my bag so that our daughter is comfortable sitting on any public toilet.

One important thing to note is the toilets in the airport and airplane are very LOUD when they flush and freaked my daughter out, especially when they were automatic.

One of the best tips for flying with a toddler I received was to bring a Post-It note and place it over the sensor on the toilet so that it does not automatically flush while your toddler is sitting on it. Otherwise your toddler might get so scared and hold their pee for the entire day like ours did, eek!

Boarding the plane with your toddler:

Airlines generally allow those traveling with young children to board after priority boarding, before general boarding begins. Listen to the announcements carefully so you can take advantage of family boarding, if you wish. We did experience some airline announcements state that family boarding is only for those with children two years and under, but this did not seem enforced.

Tips for flying with a toddler and keeping them entertained on the plane:

Sit in the window seat

Our daughter loves sitting in the window seat and looking out. This is especially helpful during boarding as she is entertained by watching the bag handlers load baggage and all the trucks and carts driving past, and seeing the other airplanes.

Once up in the air, the window seat is also helpful as she doesn’t get woken up as much by people walking past in the aisle.

Snacks, snacks, snacks

As I said before, bring out all the snacks! This is one of our biggest tips for flying with a toddler as snacks never fail. When bringing our own snacks, we use these snack cups as they really help limit the mess and prevent our toddler from grabbing too much at once and spilling everywhere.

Our toddler also was entertained by the juice and plastic cups on flights where they hand out drinks.

Some of the snacks that kept our toddler happy on the airplane:

Goldfish (especially these Mickey Mouse ones)
Veggie Straws
Cheerios
Pretzel Sticks
Trail Mix
Hawaiian Sweet Bread Rolls
Craisins

Use the in-flight entertainment system

If you’re on an airplane with individual entertainment systems at each seat, you’re in luck! Our daughter loved being able to watch some of her favourite shows and movies.

The only downside? When there is an announcement and the show is paused. Our daughter got frustrated when her shows got interrupted. That’s when the tablet came in handy.

Read magazines and books

Magazines and books are another thing that never fail. Our daughter loves flipping through the pages of the in-flight magazines and safety booklets. Once she’s done with those, we bring out some of her favorite small board books.

Play with Activity Books

Our toddler really enjoyed this wipe-clean activity book. It has over 50 pages of toddler-friendly exercises and puzzles to keep your toddler occupied on the plane!

Bring out the tablet

We try to reserve the tablet for when we’re traveling so that it is something new and exciting each time we travel. That’s another one of the important tips for flying with a toddler: bring something NEW to them to entertain them.

We make sure to download a few episodes of her favorite shows on Netflix before takeoff so that we don’t need Wi-Fi, as well as some games that don’t require Wi-Fi. She loves Hello Kitty games, drawing games, and driving games on her tablet.

She is happy to use her toddler headphones with her tablet. They are adjustable and fit her very well, and the volume has a max limit so that the won’t damage her ears. They can work plugged in or cordless via Bluetooth.

Another important tip? Don’t forget the charger and a power bank! Nothing worse than a meltdown when your toddler’s tablet battery dies.

Color

Coloring was another great activity that kept our daughter occupied while on the plane. We brought mess-free coloring books so that she didn’t make a mess with the markers.

Another great find were these triangular crayons that don’t roll! These are brilliant for the plane, as regular crayons roll right off and it’s hard to retrieve them from under the seats, and you end up with a frustrated toddler.

Play with some magnetic puzzles

Another good activity to bring along are these small magnetic puzzles!

Build with magnetic blocks

Our daughter is into stacking and building things so these magnetic blocks are great for the plane! And they don’t get lost as easy as other toys.

Play with stickers

What toddler doesn’t love stickers? They are a small and light activity, great for the plane! We brought along a reusable sticker set which kept our daughter entertained for a long time!

Look through photos

At times when we had to put the toys away, we kept our daughter entertained by showing her photos of our trip on our phones

Take a nap

Our daughter always manages a good nap on the plane. On longer flights, we set up her JetKids BedBox so that she can lay out and nap more comfortably. It is one of our favourite toddler travel products!

Useful items for flying with a toddler:

These were all the items we brought with us on our flight that we found useful!

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We hope these tips for flying with a toddler have been helpful in preparing you for your flight! Good luck and have fun!!

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Tips For Flying With A Toddler, From Well-Traveled Parents

Tips For Flying With A Toddler

Flying with a toddler – What to know when purchasing tickets: